Time Changes Everything
by HotaruGFC
Summary: Post-DSOD. Tea comes back for a visit from America and Yugi doesn't quite know how he feels anymore. Likely a one-shot.


A/N: A little something I wrote based on a bingo card I got. Trigger Warning: Rape, Infidelity

* * *

Yugi stood nervously in the airport, rocking back and forth as they waited.

"Calm down. It's only Tea." Tristan pulled the shorter young man back into a seat at the baggage claim area.

"Yeah, Yuge, you're making me nervous." Joey leaned back into the narrow chair, occupying as much space as possible as he looked around and watched the people passing by.

"I know, I know. I just... I don't know. It's been two years since we've seen each other."

"But you've been talking, right? phone calls?" Tristan leaned into his friend. "That sort of thing."

"Who calls anymore?" Joey asked as his attention was drawn in by a tall brunette in the distance. He whistled approvingly as the figure moved through the crowd.

"We do talk, but it's not the same. I mean, before she left there was so much that I wanted to say and..."

"And you still haven't told her?" Tristan threw his hands up in exhasperation. "Damn Yugi, what the hell have you been waiting for?"

"It just hasn't felt right, ya know?"

"If only..."

"I never expected to feel like this, not after Miku and I started dating." Yugi closed his eyes and sighed. He chastised himself for getting so worked up over Tea's visit. It's not like they had actually dated in school. There was that one time they went out alone, but he couldn't really say it had been him on a date with her. And after that time, he had never worked up the nerve to ask her out again.

"Miku's a little hottie, though, under those glasses." Joey added, his attention divided between the discussion and a curvy girl with pink hair who had come running by. "I'd hit it."

Yugi looked at his friend, not sure if he meant the girl he was watching of Miku.

"You two have been together, what six months?" Tristan asked. Yugi nodded. Miku was a software developer at Kaiba Corporation. They had met when Mokuba had put her on the development team for a game that Yugi had pitched him. He still remembered walking into her cubical his first day there and how she swiviled around to meet him, completely unfazed by his presence. Her big brown eyes looked him over, she shrugged and turned back to her computer to finish the bit of code she had been working on.

Yugi looked down and noticed he was still wearing his ID badge from work. He quickly unclipped it from his coat pocket and tucked it away. He still couldn't believe that he worked for KaibaCorp sometimes. He was sure if the elder Kaiba was still around, he would not be.

Yugi's knee started to shake as his nervousness took over once more. Joey placed his hand on the jittery appendage and pressed it down.

"Stop. You're shaking the whole bench."

On his other side, Tristan tapped his arm with the back of his hand.

"She's here."

Yugi shot up like a rocket, standing on the chair to see better over the crowd. Tristan was right. Tea was standing a few feet away and Yugi felt his heart skip a beat. He waved his arm over his head to get her attention. She waved back once she saw him. Yugi was quick to close the distance between them and help her retrieve her bags from the carousel when they came up. He could not help the broad smile spreading on his face when she finally hugged him. She laid her head on his shoulder as she squeezed him.

"I've missed you." Tea whispered and Yugi felt what could only be described as an electric jolt through his body as her lips brushed his ear.

"I've missed you, too." Her skin was warm against him as he brushed the tip of his nose against her neck. They lingered in the embrace, only parting when the rest of the foursome approached. Yugi looked up, ever so slightly, into her blue-green eyes and felt sixteen once more.

"Oh, this is not going to go well." Tristan muttered, crossing his arms as he looked at his reunited friends.

"Tristan! Joey!" Tea hugged them each in turn before turning back to Yugi. "I have a surprise. Guess who I met up with in LA?"

"I don't know, who?" Tristan played along. Joey's attention had been captured by yet another passerby. A tall blond woman popped up behind Tea.

"Mai!" Yugi shouted before hugging the older woman.

"It's good to see you, Yugi."

"You, too. What are you doing here? I thought you had gone off to find your fortune?"

"I am, as a pro-duelist. I'm here for the tournament. But my real question is, why aren't you competing, Yugi?"

"Yugi's not about that life anymore." Tristan said before stepping in for a hug of his own. "He's more game designer, than player right now."

Mai laughed.

"Well, I can't wait to play test your games, Yugi." She turned her attention to Joey, who was still frantically searching the crowd.

"Joey?" Yugi looked up at his friend and the conflicted emotions on his face.

"I saw your name on the tournament bracket, Joey." Mai forced him into the conversation.

"Hello, Mai." He hugged her stiffly. Yugi looked between the pair of them, convinced something was eating them both up. "Yeah. In the peon division, though."

"You have to start somewhere."

"You would think the person who came in fourth in the Battle City tournament would automatically qualify at a slightly higher level."

"Except Kaiba's tournament wasn't an officially sanctioned Industrial Illusion tournament. It wasn't in their system, so technically, no. But, anyway, I'm glad you're still competing, Joey." She squeezed his arm in a way that Yugi suspected was more than friendly, given how she also chewed her bottom lip. Joey seemed frozen to the spot, caught between wanting to act and wanting to run.

"Guys, we should get going. We'll miss the next train if we don't, and I frankly don't want to have to find a cab to take us all the way back to Domino City." Tristan pointed out as he directed everyone else out of the airport.

Yugi sat across from Tea as they rode the train from the main international airport to their hometown. Tea sat staring out the window at the snow-covered peaks in the distance. Yugi caught himself staring at her. Tristan had fallen asleep; his late hours at the factory he helped manage coupled with the early morning trip to the airport finally catching up with him. Joey and Mai kept looking at each other awkwardly, both looked like they wanted to say something, but hesitated before actually saying it.

"I never got to visit them." Tea said suddenly, breaking the silence among the group, her eyes still focused on the scene outside.

"Visit what?" Yugi couldn't tear his eyes off of her long enough to glance out the window. Despite the two years and his amazing relationship with Miku, it felt to him as if nothing had changed in his heart.

"The mountains. I was sick during the class trip in grade eight. I would love to see them up close. I mean, it's not like I haven't seen snow before, it snows plenty enough in New York, but there's something about seeing Fuji-Sama topped with snow that's so... I don't know. Serene, I guess?"

Yugi had forgotten that she had not attended the trip. It had been a pretty miserable time for him, and they hadn't been on the best of terms at the time, so he had blocked out much of middle school. He finally forced himself to look out the window and saw what she meant.

"Maybe we can go while you're here?" He felt himself blush and he quickly added. "All four of us, I mean."

She looked at him then and he regretted the suggestion.

"It doesn't have to be all four." She placed her hand on his, leaning across the narrow space between them to do so. Yugi swallowed hard and tried chastising himself once again, but as she leaned closer to him, he felt himself draw nearer still until their lips met. The kiss was soft and sweet, almost tentative, and it lingered before Yugi sat back and turned his attention to the window with a sigh.

He could feel her eyes on him a moment before she too distracted herself.

As he watched the countryside flying past he wondered what exactly he was going to do as guilt began to devour him.

The rest of the ride was silent, and Yugi at least felt awkward. He dreaded their arrival at the station, knowing Miku would be waiting for them and Grandpa, probably too. He tortured himself with possible scenarios of how she would handle meeting Tea. By the time the train pulled into the station, he had come up with at least seventy-three different possibilities, and none of them were good. His palms were sweaty with anxiety as the train stopped and they disembarked. Yugi had been right as Miku was standing next to his grandfather, waving them down as eagerly as he had waved Tea over at the airport.

The station was preparing for Christmas and, more importantly, New Year's celebrations, as they stepped onto the platform. Workers were busy applying fake frost to the station windows as they crossed over to the waiting pair.

"Yugi!" Miku practically launched herself at him, in a way he had totally been expecting and was completely customary for Miku. He spun her around, thankful for the fact that she was actually shorter than he was, if only by an few centimeters. When she kissed him, there was an eagerness, but also a familiarity which warmed him despite the chill in the air.

"You're acting like I've been gone for days." He laughed, a broad smile lighting up his face. She slipped an arm around his waist and leaned into him.

"I can't help it. I've missed you."

He draped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek, surprised at how easy it was for him to shower her with affection.

"Besides, I'm having a problem with getting the computer model to fit the wireframe and getting the wireframe to actually move the way it needs to." She started going off about work.

"Problems with the CAD guys?" Yugi immediately put on his game designer hat. Mokuba had made him a manager on the project as it was his vision they were trying to develop, but much of his time was spent putting out little personnel fires rather than designing. He barely noticed Tea's confused glances.

"Yugi, aren't you going to introduce Miku?" His grandfather nudged him.

"Oh, right. Tea, this is my girlfriend, Miku. We work together too. Miku, this is Tea."

Miku bowed to the taller woman before extending her hand.

"A pleasure to meet you. Yugi's told me so much about you. I think it's incredible that you traveled all the way to America to study dance." Miku started rambling, and would have gone on and on if Yugi hadn't pulled her back to him.

"It's nice to meet you too, though I must admit, I haven't heard much about you." Tea replied.

* * *

A few days later, before the New Year's rush, Yugi found himself walking into a hotel lobby with Tea. And everything about it felt wrong. He looked out at the scenery, objectively beautiful, with the frost covered trees and snow-capped mountains that Tea had missed out on in their childhood, but he could find no pleasure in the scene.

"This is lovely." Tea purred as she placed her arm over his shoulders. Yugi jumped slightly at the touch.

"Yeah."

She kissed his cheek and then slipped her hand in his.

"Come on." She tugged on his hand and Yugi let her lead him deeper into the hotel. His heart was racing, but not in the same way it had been when he had met her in the airport. Fear overwhelmed him, fear and guilt and he fought hard to ignore them both. Once they were inside their room, Tea's mouth pressed against his. She kissed him hungrily, almost desperately once they were behind closed doors. Yugi felt himself respond, despite his misgivings. They dropped their bags and undressed each other, eagerly giving in to their base desires.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you." Tea breathed between kisses. Yugi's mind was too lost to respond as she nipped at his neck. He had never stopped wanting her, but as she mounted him, he wondered if it really was him she couldn't stop thinking about. The thought was fleeting as his body's reaction to her soon overwhelmed any logical reasoning he may have had.

It was over quickly, for both of them. Yugi looked up at the ceiling as Tea rolled over in the bed and pulled the heavy blanket over her body. He looked over at her, now sleeping, and the wrongness came rushing back to him. Memories of the many times he and Miku had had sex sprang up in his mind. After every time with Miku, he had always been filled with something more, something almost tangible. Now, he felt empty.

He slipped out of the bed and pulled his clothes back on. He grabbed a blanket from the closet before stepping barefoot outside on the small porch that the room opened on to. He walked to the edge of the wooden surface to where a thin layer of snow covered the ground. He sat down with his feet hanging from the edge and looked at the mountains beyond. He smiled, thinking how much Miku would love to see this and then laughed bitterly to himself for being her with someone other than her, even if it was his old crush. He pulled out his phone and called her to share the scene with her.

"Hey Shorty." She answered, her voice sounding a bit distant.

"Am I on speaker?"

"Yeah, I've got a huge amount of debug work going on. I need hands free. They pulled me onto the Synth project, because they didn't have enough hands to manage all the problems. Of course if they had done as I told them in the first place, they wouldn't need so many people, but then bosses tend to have I-D-ten-T errors."

He could hear her typing in the background. He couldn't help but smile at her assessment.

"Don't let Mokuba catch you saying that."

"What's he going to do? Fire me?"

Yugi chuckled. They both knew she was too valuable of an asset to the company. Mokuba had told Yugi when he had introduced them, that she was the best developer they had, second only to his brother.

"Can you get on video?" He chewed his nail as he looked out at the view. "Please?" He could hear her sigh, as she always did when she had to break the groove she was in.

"Only for you, Babe."

Yugi looked at the screen on his phone, anticipating the appearance of her face. A broad grin spread across his when he saw her.

"Hey." He wanted to say so much more, but the rush of emotions was too much for him to codify into words. She met his smile with a small chuckle.

"Hey." she dragged the word out into a question as her eyebrow quirked upwards.

"I wanted to show you something." He turned the phone's camera out to the scene and could hear her gasp. He let her look for a moment before turning the camera back on himself.

"It's so beautiful there, Yugi. I'd only ever gone during the summer."

"Yeah. I thought you might like it." He looked at her for a long moment. "I wish you were here." And he realized he had never said words more true in his entire life.

"Me, too."

"I love you."

Miku gasped and looked at him wide-eyed. Yugi waited, chewing on his lip, as he watched her process what he had said. Despite dating her for the last six months, despite seeing each other every day for work. Despite the comfortable physical nature of their relationship, Yugi had never told her that he loved her. Now that he said it, he wondered why it had taken him so damn long.

"I love you, too."

And the grin was back plastered on his face. Her words filled him with that something he always felt after they had sex, and he realized that he had loved her for a very long time.

"I should let you get back to work." He sighed, reluctant to end the call. "I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

Miku's smile lit her face and made his heart soar.

"Yeah. Have fun." She also didn't seem to want to hang up.

"Bye."

"Bye."

Yugi forced himself to end the call. She wasn't supposed to take personal calls while on the clock, and he didn't want her to get in trouble with her supervisor. He was fairly certain he could get Mokuba to wipe anything from her record if he asked, but he didn't want to put her through that in the first place.

He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, folding himself into a bit of a ball. The blanket was pulled tightly around his shoulders. He sat, watching the scene, looking for small animals going about their preparations for winter, taking in the way the clouds moved across the sky, and how the light reflected off of the mountains in the distance. He vowed to bring Miku back here one day.

He was lost in his thoughts of the future, when Tea's hands pressed down on his shoulders.

"What are you doing out here in the cold?"

She had not bothered to get dressed. Yugi looked over her long lithe body. The last couple of years of dance training had changed her body so much from when they were in school. She seemed slimmer, taller, though her breasts were still ample. As she leaned over him, they fell practically in his face and he felt a rush of desire, followed quickly by a rush of guilt.

"What are you doing out here naked?" His voice quivered, as he tried to shift away from her and diffuse the situation.

She smiled seductively and knelt next to him.

"Trying to get you to come back inside with me." She slipped her hand under the blanket and over his thigh. His body betrayed him as her fingers stroked his fly.

"Tea." He squirmed under her touch.

"Yugi." She leaned into him, her hand now teasing the zipper open as her breasts pressed against his arm. "I can tell you want me. Don't deny it." Her breath was like poison in his ear, heightening the desire his body responded with. He hated himself for being distracted so easily.

"And I want you too, Yugi. I've wanted you for so long." She slipped her hand inside his pants now that she had opened the zipper. He forced his gaze onto the mountain in the distance as her fingers stroked him. His mind was screaming to make her stop, but his body was frozen by her touch. She licked his cheek and he turned to her in surprise. She pressed her lips against his, roughly, almost violently, tackling him to the porch, pushing him back against the wooden decking.

"Brr. It's cold out here." She ran her hands over his chest before pulling his pants down further. "Let me warm you up."

Yugi wanted to scream, to tell her to stop, but her hands on his skin, her body pressed against his, paralyzed him. And she was right, he had wanted her. He had wanted her for so long that it had made him ache. But he didn't want her now. Shame and anger was all he felt as she fucked him. When she was done, he lay there, exposed in the cold, wishing he had never agreed to come with her, wishing he had insisted they have separate rooms, or that Joey and Tristan had been able to come with them as they had originally planned.

"What am I going to do?" he asked the sky which was darkening as the sun set on the other side of the mountains. Tea came back out on the porch, dressed now, with a cup of coffee in each hand.


End file.
